The Little World

Every fortnight or so I visit a private home for a friendly scale modelling session with a group separate from my normal modelling club. The experience can be quite different.

I enjoy the routine of each experience, but I keep them separate in my mind. Oddly, one of the other participants in the home sessions is also a club mate elsewhere. In any case, both are enjoyable times. In the home We get fed and watered better than at the club, but get less done – except if the project is an Airfix kit. With Airfix – or Academy – you can rocket ahead.

This is also dependent upon whether or not the chosen build has a number of painting stages that need to dry between visits. I use lacquers, so I can abridge some time, but it still needs caution with big surface work.

The Gladiator interior was easy to paint with a brush – and will be so little seen that it almost makes no difference. Pilot or not – open or closed – the interior space will be occluded. So I was able to get the fuselage closed on the first working afternoon. The lower wing and upper nose as well, and the impetus of the thing took me on to the tailplanes. The glory of the Airfix engineering was such that no jigs were needed.

There was even recovery from what might have been a disaster. The upper nose with the cabane struts moulded to it was dropped on the floor and trodden on by the host! Not his fault, and I forgive him completely – and I am happy to report that the plastic let everything straighten out safely. The wing will go on straight.

Now it waits cooler weather to undercoat and paint the two major colours – hopefully in the fortnight pause. The wait cools the mind, even if the body is hot.